Persuit of Happiness
by calicoskies4ever
Summary: How the episode Resignation should have ended. For all of those antiHoney shippers out there. HouseWilson slash, AU, and all of the usual disclaimers.
1. Chapter 1

How the episode Resignation should have ended. For all of those anti-Honey shippers out there. House goes home, and gets depressed, and calls Wilson up in the middle of the night. Anyway, House/Wilson slash, AU, and all of the usual disclaimers.

"The time is going to come when you stop feeling sorry for yourself. Yeah, you were broken when you were young and you never got over it. You were damaged when you were young, and now you take it out on everyone. The time is going to come when you say that enough is enough. The time is going to come when you stop beating yourself up. The time is going to come when you see that all you need is love," Everclear

When the phone rings at 3:00 in the morning, I know it's House, without even picking it up, and yet I still find myself debating whether or not I should answer it, but in the end, I pick up on the fifth ring.

"Hey," he says as I bring the receiver to my ear. Even though he hasn't said anything, I start getting dressed, and searching for my keys. "Do you think you can come over?" he asks, sucking in his breath.

"I'll be right there," I explain, still searching for the car keys, and eventually finding them in my underwear drawer. God only knows how they got in there. "You want a coffee?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"As long as you're not gonna keep putting happy pills in It," he shoots back, which is exactly what I was expecting. "Yeah, okay," he says quietly, after a short pause. The thing about House is that he really doesn't like people, at all.

It's not an act. He really is that big of a jerk. Most of the time. He does like me though. At least we have that. So when he's feeling lonely, depressed, or worse, I'm the one he calls, even if it is the middle of the night.

"Here," I push myself through the door, cups in hand. He's sitting on the couch, an orange bottle cupped between his palms, rolling it around, and around. House doesn't pick up the coffee, even after I take a sip from each one, to prove that they're both safe.

"So, I went out with that girl tonight," he starts to explain, putting the bottle down on the table, unopened. "We talked, and I wasn't nice, or charming, or even funny, and she wasn't bothered by it. She was even okay with—well everything."

"I'm going to skip the park where I pretend to be horrified that you told a compete stranger all of your dirty little secrets so we an get to the part where you tell me that I had to come over here at about 4:00 AM so you could tell me you're in love. And then I can kill you and maybe even get some sleep."

"I'm not in love, and neither was she. The woman took one look at me and thought, _project_. My telling her that I'm a drug addict, who eats meat, and sleeps around, only proved her point. Anyway, I could of dealt with that, especially if I just brought her back here and then never called her again afterwards, but I didn't do that."

"You didn't sleep with a woman who you have no intention of perusing, who you aren't even remotely interested in, and then you came home, and got drunk and decided to cal me…because you're having an ethical dilemma?"

"No—I mean. I was just…I was thinking maybe I shouldn't have dosed you. That was just cruel, mean-spirited. But—antidepressants, those things can be dangerous, it says so in the TV commercials—"

"Is this you not wanting to take them now that everything is out in the open, or are you just mad? Because—okay. I'm sorry, but I knew you wouldn't take them on your own and I thought they might help."

"With my fictional depression?" House actually smiles at that one. Then he reaches for the coffee cup, taking a small cautious sip, before actually starting to drink it.

"It helped, didn't it? They did their job, at least, somewhat anyway. You were—well maybe not happy, but you were in a better mood than I'd seen you in, in years. You were smiling, and enjoying yourself, taking fewer pills."

"Technically I was taking more, I just didn't know it," he tells me with a slight chuckle. "And I wasn't happy."

"No, but maybe your definition of happiness is completely unobtainable. You've never been happy, which means you don't know what it would feel like. So, you've created an idea in your mind based on TV and movies."

"It's a good thing you're not a lawyer, or you would have even less money then you do, after those three divorces of yours." Then his voice gets quiet, almost shy. "Give me the pills."

"Why. You said you didn't like the way they make you feel, so why would you want them?" I ask, biting down against my lip a little, nervously. I'm almost afraid to answer.

"Maybe I changed my mind," he offers me another shrewd little smile. "Or maybe the pills did it for me."

"On their own, anti-depressants can only do so much. That's why you are supposed to go and see a psychiatrist if you want them, so they can talk to you, evaluate you, keep an eye on you."

"I agreed to take the damn happy pills, what else do you want fro me?" he asks, popping a handful of Vicodin. I've got an answer to that, of course, but I don't think I need to say it out loud. He knows how I feel. So, I hand him the bottle and House places it down next to the other one. Then he puts his hand on top of mine, leaning back on the couch, and sipping his coffee. "Maybe I'll flush the pills down the toilet," he offers with yet another tiny smile. "Happiness is over rated anyway."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: so Wilson's been telling me that there's more to this story, and I think he's right. So this time Wilson is the one with a problem, and he needs House to help/love/support him. How much of that he's actually going to get, we'll have to wait and see.

"So what do you have to be so depressed about?" House asks, after a few minutes of blissful silence. "I mean, I understand why you would give me the pills, but are you actually depressed?"

"Huh?" is about all that I can muster. It's been a long day, and I am extraordinarily tired, and it is after all only about 5:00 in the morning.

"You yawned!"

"I did not."

"Well not just now, but you were yawning before, which means that you were also taking the antidepressants, and there are only two reasons that would explain that. Either you are really are depressed, and we need to—or you just felt like you needed to take the pills since you did after all scam a doctor into giving them to you. I suppose there is a third option, that you're in love with the shrink and you're taking happy pills to please her—or maybe him."

"Does it ever get confusing in your—insanity? That was just—I'm not even sure what the question in all of that was, if there was a question." House laughs, which could be a good thing, or he could be gearing up to make fun of me. God this is confusing, and annoying. And he wonders why I need antidepressants.

"Everything is confused—or sometimes not at all—Heh. If I really wanted to confuse you, I would start speaking in Japanese, completely freak you out."

"You see this—this is exactly why I needed eh pills in the first place. You're completely insane, and a person can only deal with so much of someone else's insanity before they start to go crazy too."

"The only flaw there is that if just being with me was enough to drive you crazy then it would have happened a long time ago."

"House, for once in your life shut up, please."

"We've been—'friends' for more than twenty years, but the yawning is new, two weeks, three tops, which means that something has changed in the past month. You're not pregnant are you?"

"What? No! God, you're annoying," I shout, folding my arms over my chest. "Can you drop it please?" House's eyes widen slightly, and he smiles again. Damn! I just gave him something.

"Come on, you know you wanna talk about it. That's why you're here at 5:00 in the morning."

"I'm here because you called me at 4:00 and beg—asked—me to come by. I was afraid of what you might do if I didn't." That's not completely true, but I'm hoping that hell let it go, because he thinks he's onto something bigger.

"No it's not. Besides, if I was going to do something like _that_, you are the last person I'd call, and I definitely wouldn't have asked you to come over."

"Unless you wanted me to stop you."

"So you're taking anti-depressants because you think I'm going to kill myself? How is that even remotely helpful?" House asks, raising his eyebrows slightly.

"Can we stop? It's personal."

"If I tried to use that excuse, there is no way you'd let me get away with it. Why should you be any different? Look, Wilson, if this is about the whole moving in together thing, I said it was okay. I'm just not sure there's enough room for you and me, and your self-righteousness."

"Don't forget _your_ ego," is about the best comeback I can thin of, which doubly sucks, because it actually proves his point. "That's not what this is about, anyway."

"Well, it can't be that you want us to be closer, if we were any more intimate, we'd be sharing a toothbrush." He chuckles, mostly, because House knows that the idea sent a shiver down my spine. "Unless…you wanna get married! Wilson wants to marry me," he practically sings, and then stops, looking over at me, horrified.

"No! No not ever—I—that is the worst thing we could do," I try to explain, and he relaxes. "Can't you see that I don't want to talk about this thing?"

"Of course," he tells me simply, "but you're the one who always wants to talk about everything. You had to know that the minute you declared something as being personal and off limits; I'd jump on it like a dog on a bone."

"Speaking of which, the vet said Hector is going to be fine."

"You're not going to distract me with _that_."

"Personal, as in private, as in I really, really, don't feel comfortable talking about it."

"I'm a drug addict. What could you possibly say that would be more embarrassing than what any random patient in the clinic has to tell me?"

"So go work at the clinic and leave _me_ alone."

"My leg hurts—plus you know, it's closed. Spill."

"I will write you a prescription for fentanyl if you drop it."

"If it's that good, getting this secret out of you will be better than any drug in the universe. It'll be even better than sex."

"Or we could do that."

"Yeah, still more interested in whatever it is you're trying so desperately to hide from me."

"I have three failed marriages, and yeah, I am a doctor, but I'm an oncologist, which means that most of my patients die, even if they do go into remission for a while. You're the only relationship in my life that hasn't completely fallen apart, and you treat me like crap. No kids, no wife, no girlfriends, just you and a job that sucks at least 50 of the time, usually more."

"Again, all things that are true but have also been that way for ay least a year. I haven't even been a bigger jerk than usual lately. Now it is possible that you actually think your problem is only what you just described, but we both know you weren't popping Prozacs sixths months ago."

"Actually it's Zoloft."

"Like I care." House stares at me, cold and hard, for a long time, as if he were trying to read mind. "There's something you're not telling me. Now maybe even you don't know what that is, but it's there, and if you can't tell me, who else are you going to talk to about it."

"Someone who isn't going to blab to the entire hospital." It's a cheep shot, I know, but it's also my best point, pretty much my only point. "That and the last thing I need is _you_ screwing with my thoughts."

"I'm capable of being discrete—don't laugh—I am. I never told anyone that Cuddy was trying to get pregnant."

"You just old me."

"Technically she told you first, which means I didn't blab any actual secret. I just confirmed a point already known by all three persons involved, proving that I can actually keep my mouth shut."

"It would be great if you did that right now. And how the hell did you know what Cuddy told me? Do you just sit with your ear pressed up against the wall next to her office all day long?"

"Don't have to. I can read both of you well enough to have seen the difference before you knew and after. Come on Jimmy, I know you're just itching to talk to someone. Let's play doctor. I'm good at it."

"Yeah, but before you fix me I'll probably end up on a respirator or with an arrow sticking through the back of my head, or worse."

"Hey. I have never stuck anything through anybody's head."

"You shot a guy in the morgue last year!"

"He was already dead, and you're only using that as an excuse not to talk to me about your real problem. That's called avoidance. See I'm good at all this mumbo-jumbo."

"That's another reason not to let you mess with my head. How can you possibly help me if you don't believe I have a real problem that isn't just all in my mind or that—if you don't believe in all of this."

"I believe in some of it, I just don't think we need to go running around gobbling up mind altering drugs to deal with all of life's little problems," House says, ironically swallowing a handful of Vicodin at the same time. "This is not mind-altering/ 

"I don't know," I admit, at last, because I really haven't got the faintest clue. My heart hurts, and I'm sad, all o the time, but I don't—there doesn't seem to be any reason for it. Of course that's not what I told the shrink, but who would—in order to explain that I'd have to tell her bunch of other stuff about me and House and other things I don't want anyone else to know." How do I—you're not going to use this against me?"

"Of course I am, but not until you're at least feeling better." He smiles. "I'm a jerk, but I'm not that bad am I?"

"I don't know," I ask, "are you?" House responds by pulling me into a hug, quickly, and then letting me go, quickly.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: so I don't know who to feel worse for in this situation, Wilson who is depressed and doesn't really know why, or House who has to straighten up and take care of him. Enjoy, very angst ridden although also snarky.

"Gravity is working against me, and gravity wants to bring me down. Oh I'll never know what makes this man with all the love that his heart can stand, dream of ways to throw it all away," John Mayer

"Okay, this is—weird," House announces right after he lets go off me, as he looks off into the distance, clearly uncomfortable. "I don't know how to be the _good_ friend, or whatever you want to call this. I don't like seeing you unhappy but, I don't know how to help. I'm supposed to be the one with all of the problems in this relationship."

To be honest, I sort of feel like maybe I should just act like House, pretend that nothing is wrong, ignore all of my emotional problems until they manifest themselves as physical pain. Sometimes I wonder if worrying about him makes me a little sick. It's like I spend so much time focusing on his problems, that I don't have time for my own. Maybe that is the problem. Of course, I know better, I can't blame everything that goes wrong in my life on him, even if I wanted to.

"I've been feeling a little down lately. I'm not sure if it's a big deal, or not. All I know is that I've been blue and it didn't go away. It might be from my other problems, or it could be something else entirely." House looks up at me with a slight smile. "What exactly do you find so funny?"

"I know that feeling," he explains. "That's like my every morning, afternoon, and night. I think life sucking is just one of those nasty parts of being a grown up. Life sucks. Get used to it."

"But I'm not like you, House, and I don't want to be. I enjoy, enjoying things. I like being happy. I want to go back to that, even if it means I have to back to putting up with all of the crazy things you do."

"So basically what you are saying, is that you are sad, and you don't know why, but you don't like that you are feeling that way?"

"Well, that's sort of summing it up and not taking everything into consideration, but yeah, I guess so."

"Well, that's easy, then," House explains, leaning back in his seat, reaching for the bottle of pills. "Just fake it, 'till you make it. Pretend you're feeling happy until you actually are."

"That's the advice you're going to give me? You want me to lie, and to keep on lying until it becomes true? Did you actually think that was going to work, or were you just trying to get me off your back?"

"I was just telling you what I always do."

"And it works fantastically! Just look at how happy you are, everyone can see it."

"But I don't even bother to pretend. We've discussed this. I don't care—about anything. But that's just me. You, on the other hand…you like people. You want them to like you, ad you want to be happy. Just because I don't know how to help doesn't mean I don't want to."

"I guess these are uncharted waters for both of us. I'm sorry I snapped at you. I haven't felt this way since I was—actually I've never felt like this. I mean I get down sometimes, but I'm not used to needing this kind of help."

"Me either," he sighs, offering up the Vicodin bottle. "Maybe it'll help. I mean—if you're—they always make me feel better."

"Yeah, but you're in actual pain…sometimes, and I'm not in that kind of—I don't feel, I don't think it would help. Is that you're only suggestion?" I ask, feeling myself getting a little bit too angry with him. Especially considering that he hasn't actually done anything wrong, at least nothing that I know of. "Sorry."

"So is this some sort of an ongoing thing, or was it sudden?" Now that was sort of a weird thing for him to say. It's exactly the type of statement I'd expect from a shrink, but not House. "You asked me to be nice, but if you're going to break out about it, then I won't bother."

"Well its one thing for me to ask you to be nice about my whole—about this thing, but for you to actually do it, is well sort of, unexpected. You're not nice, to anyone."

"And you're nice to everybody. Plus, I like you, and I don't want—if you really want me to be—whatever, then you talk, and I'll listen. I might be a jerk, but I'm a halfway decent jerk who does care about _you_—and if you tell anyone that, I'll kill you."

That sounds a lot more like him. I laugh a little, which makes him smile, and he reaches up, dropping a hand around my shoulder. "You wanna go into the other room or something?"

"You mean for," I let my voice drop off, looking back at the bed room. This thing is sort of crazy, and I'm not exactly comfortable right now. "I don't think that's a good idea, not right now, anyway." House nods, still smiling.

"You never answered my question. So, how long have you been feeling this way?" he asks, this time, sounding a bit more annoyed than actually concerned. I know he cares abut me, but I think I'm starting to get on his nerves.

"I'm not sure. The last year or so has sucked. First was that thing with you and—_her, _then my wife left me, and hen we had that other problem. I've been so busy, so stressed; I didn't exactly have the time to even think about things. I only just noticed it, maybe two, three months ago, but it could have just as easily started at any time. That sounds completely insane, doesn't it?" I ask, pulling myself closer to House body, and letting him put both of his arms around me.

"You do know who you are talking to, right? I'm the guy who—well you know all of my crazy, stupid, weird, screwed up secrets. And I shouted have caused you—most of your problems are because of me, and that's not fair, or right. I shouldn't have. I am sorry."

As of right now, I'm not exactly sure whether or not he means any of that or if he's just saying whatever it is he thinks I want to hear. Either way, it is still the right thing for him to tell me.

"So did you really mean that or are you just saying it? On second thought, I don't wanna know. It's not your fault, not all of it. I can't blame you for my marriage ending or for the Stacy thing…" He winces at the mention of her name— "Sorry. She's always had that sort of—never mind. I don't blame you for that."

"It sounds to me, like you've been feeling pretty shitty for a while, and maybe I should have seen that you were having problems, and actually done something about that."

"Did you just—I can't believe you actually said that. I don't even know how I'm supposed to respond." Then House gives me this look, the exact same face Hector makes when he knows he's gotten caught doing something wrong, but he isn't sure what that was.

"That's what you wanted wasn't it? You wanted me to take responsibility for the mistakes I've made, for me to apologize for the pain I've caused you. That's what you want, right?" Then he pushes me back slightly. "IF you don't want me to be nice, then you really should stop asking for it," he tells me, getting up, walking to the kitchen and grabbing us each a beer. "Here take this and shut up."

"Again, I'm sorry, but you gotta admit, you are not nice—so this whole thing is weird. I just don't know how to react to it. I shouldn't have doubted your sincerity, but you have to at least agree that you screw with me, a lot."

"Yeah, I do, but that wasn't what I was trying to do right now. You need my help, and I might suck at giving that, but I am trying, I am. So give me a chance to try and figure this thing out so we can go back to the way things were, okay?"

"Sure," I tell him, nodding. Maybe he's right, and maybe I can trust him. If I'm lucky then maybe he and I can figure this thing out and be okay again. I certainly hope we can, anyway.


End file.
